If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R2cnxz27LI

The most beautiful ad I’ve seen in a long time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0D38ODmciw

(Interest declared: my wife is exec producer at the production company (Sonny) that represents the director (Steve Rogers). Hire him. He’s darn good.)

I just checked out the most recent One Show Annual.

Of course, there are some great ads in it, but as I flipped the pages I couldn’t help one tiny little word whispering into my ear with growing persistence:

Scam.

Scam, scam, fucking scam.

I could be wrong (and officially I am), but how genuine do you think these examples are?

Nice ad, and indeed, winning does hurt, but sports injuries tend to be internal, the kind of problems that a plaster can't cure. And are these sports plasters, made with a special stretchy fabric to allow you to continue your training? Apparently not. And what are they really saying? You train, you cut yourself, you put a plaster on the cut and you train some more so that your time is faster? Bullshit, pure and simple.

Hmmm... a campaign for extra strength painkillers. Again, it's very good, but I find it hard to believe that the giant pharmaceutical company Bayer has decided to run such a clean DPS with no legals, packshots or other nastinesses that might get in the way of a nice gold pencil.

WWF: the king scam client of all time. Here's another clean-as-a-whistle corker to join the ranks of their other bullshit. I admire the cleverness, but this has quite obviously not been created to get anyone to donate. 'Visit this tiny website' trumps 'fill in this coupon' any day of the week if you want to win at international awards. Heaven forbid a potential donor would have to suffer that negative space being sullied by something so vulgar.

But that’s not the real crime of that most recent One Show.

For that you have to see the dull-as-ditchwater, no one-has-ever-sat-through-the-whole-thing winner of Best in Show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NvDev-5qP4

And the ad it beat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZOm2YhOI4c

Nice one, judges.

Is here (thanks, ermm).

Never mind what I think.

What I think doesn’t matter.

Ever.

What do YOU think?

OK, just one:  Two shortlistings? Jesus fucking wept:

UPDATE: hadn’t seen this, but quite like it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxAz9lKvclc&feature=player_embedded

Nice counterpoint to the Chrysler ad.

ShotsInterview

(Thanks, Danny.)

I did an ad like this in my student book, but it was for Loaded and chose a rather less sympathetic charity to take the piss out of. I’m also happy to admit it was juvenile and not something to be particularly proud of (although it did go down rather well when we showed it around).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOwJOcp-Mxk

To do it in real life, and in the Superbowl no less, is a misguided error of epic proportions.

Fuck off Groupon.

Chrysler. Super Bowl. W&K. Kevin Yon did the VO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKL254Y_jtc

Interesting to compare it to the Virgin ad below.

It’s another observation + VO jobbie, but with a better written and better performed voiceover.

Aside from that, I find the Eminem thing a bit of a distraction. I know he’s Mr. Detroit, but it makes it feel like the ad is trying to make several points at once (maybe it is): resurgence, blue collar values, luxury from hard work, Detroit is not fucked like you thought etc.

I got all that from the pre-Eminem bit. Now I’m just thinking, why is a man with such credibility shilling for a car company? An ad for investing in Detroit, yes. An ad for Chrysler? Hmmm…

Anyway, it’s very well made, so hats off for that.

Directed by Seb Edwards @ Academy.

I went to school with someone called Seb Edwards, but it’s not him.

I think this has been well shot, and is nicely observed.

Not that keen on the VO artist, though – seems a little bland for the visuals.

But never mind me.

What do YOU think of it?

I really like the idea, and in the main it’s very nicely executed.

I’m just not overly fond of the music running all the way through then rising at the end.